A big one was the release of Koha 1.2.0 in JULY. For the first time, we saw a product that looked like a viable alternative to our current software. In late August, we held a day-long MEETING of the tech team to review everything that we had seen and learned so far in our research project, and we decided that Koha lacked only three absolutely critical things for our needs: full MARC support, a Z39.50 server module, and a SIP2 or NCIP module. To fill those needs, we decided to commit some financial resources to Koha development.

Our future plan is to move some of our data into the current VERSION of Koha to see what changes we will need to make in the Koha tables. (And we would then suggest to the Koha developers that these types of changes should be built into some sort of configuration utility or template, rather than being hard-coded.) Once we have a little of our data transferred and working, we will transfer the rest and plan to run Koha in tandem with our old circulation system. This will not only allow staff to get familiar with the new system (Koha), it will also give them an opportunity to request changes to screens, customized FUNCTIONS, etc. Once we find that Koha has become the system of choice for the staff, we will shut down the old automation system.

A big one was the release of Koha 1.2.0 in July. For the first time, we saw a product that looked like a viable alternative to our current software. In late August, we held a day-long meeting of the tech team to review everything that we had seen and learned so far in our research project, and we decided that Koha lacked only three absolutely critical things for our needs: full MARC support, a Z39.50 server module, and a SIP2 or NCIP module. To fill those needs, we decided to commit some financial resources to Koha development.

Our future plan is to move some of our data into the current version of Koha to see what changes we will need to make in the Koha tables. (And we would then suggest to the Koha developers that these types of changes should be built into some sort of configuration utility or template, rather than being hard-coded.) Once we have a little of our data transferred and working, we will transfer the rest and plan to run Koha in tandem with our old circulation system. This will not only allow staff to get familiar with the new system (Koha), it will also give them an opportunity to request changes to screens, customized functions, etc. Once we find that Koha has become the system of choice for the staff, we will shut down the old automation system.